[Joke] Cookies

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I just read this here and laughed out loud, so I thought I would share it with you guys. God, I hope this really happened...

Cookies by Douglas Adams (author: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.

I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.

I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.

Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.

You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?

In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.

Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.

Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.

The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.

(Excerpted from "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time" by Douglas Adams)

[The Guvnor]

English are one of me favorite people :)

[mulligan2k]

made me laugh too, good find

[ViZioN]

Good find (Y)

English are one of me favorite people :)

Hey, the Scottish people are nice, too :p

[Kerm]

Really excellent. Thanks so much I thoroughly enjoyed that.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

lol Douglas Adams is great :)

[The Guvnor]

Good find (Y)

Hey, the Scottish people are nice, too :p

So are Irish , once they be drunk

[qdave]

I love this story. I hope it's true too. A really good find!

[Mohitster]

Awesome telling!!

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Lol, I like Douglas Adams, his HItchhikers series was really good :)

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

This story was also worked into one of his books: In 'So long, and thanks for all the fish' Arthur Dent tells Fenchurch how it happened to him.

[MarkusDarkus]

Brilliant! :laugh: The English are too polite for their own good. I can't imagine the amount of trouble and apologies that would have been caused if that was me. :pinch:

[riceBox]

A cookie-stealing bloke like that would have already been mauled to the face, in the Philippines. :whistle:

[wctaiwan]

A great little read. Thanks!

wctaiwan

[Phenom II]

I love it !

Im English but deffinately would have said something like, "Erm Wanna cookie like mate?"

Then he would have said they were his, then I "no mine" etc until I found mine and laughed it off appologising feeling like an idiot, but that I had something funny to post here lol

[Steven P. Administrators]

That was a good read and I laughed out loud as well :rofl: